Neil Ebbutt, Co-owner & Director Wholesale, Rituals: “Clear communication on-shelf of ‘airport price vs high street’ gives a clear call to action and supports the reputation airports want for providing value for money. There is a danger that by not communicating the price advantage, this perception is compromised.”
Neil Ebbutt, Co-owner & Director Wholesale, Rituals, is participating in this year’s ACI EUROPE Airport Commercial & Retail Conference & Exhibition, offering his perspective on retail-tainment and bringing a sense of retail theatre to airports. He gave Ross Falconer a preview of his intervention.
Q: How important is the travel retail channel to the Rituals strategy?
A: Rituals’ ambition is to build a global brand. Our distribution strategy aims at retail – 50%, wholesale – 20%, online – 20%, and travel retail – 10%. So you can see that travel retail is an integral part of this ambition. When we launch in a new market, we look to build the omni-channel approach through these four channels. In addition to accelerating our geographic expansion, we also see travel retail as a highly effective shop window to fast forward international status and awareness for our brand.
Q: Where does Rituals currently have standalone airport stores and what plans do you have to further expand the Rituals airport presence?
A: Currently at Schiphol we have two airside, in T1 and T3, and a third landside. Both airside stores have a spa attached. We are also airside at London Stansted and Stockholm Arlanda, and landside at Zurich. Expansion of our airport standalone portfolio is very much a priority for us. Further stores will open this year at London Luton and Vienna airports. We also continue to build on our strong network of shop-in-shop stores, which are operated by our global retail partners such as Gebr. Heinemann, Nuance and WDF.
Q: What is your policy for operating your standalone stores?
A: Well, we are flexible here. We operate our Schiphol airport stores ourselves because we have resources at hand. Equally, we are very willing to continue partnering with leading global duty and tax free retail operators to run our standalone stores on our behalf.
Q: And how important are travel retail exclusive products to success in the channel?
A: Our strategy for exclusives is for them to be relevant for use during travel. We develop exclusives that can rejuvenate and relax the traveller. This is important to us, as I believe the traveller should get something meaningful out of an exclusive product. Prestige products at accessible pricing is a key part of our business strategy, and I also believe that now more than ever travellers are looking for a price advantage versus the high street.
Q: What new creative developments can we expect from Rituals in 2016?
A: Rituals will launch seven new travel retail exclusive sets in April, as well as a newly created home-gift offer and a carefully-selected Soul Wear range. We also take a travel retail-specific approach to the products we bring from our domestic portfolio. Our strongest domestic performers are reimagined for travel retail in terms of the assortment and how they are presented. An example of this is our best seller, Sakura Ritual, which will be relaunched in travel retail in April.
Q: In what ways does Rituals seek to provide an experiential element and a sense of “retail theatre” in its airport stores?
A: There is nothing more effectively experiential than engaging with the product itself! Our Schiphol stores, with the travel spas, focus on hand and foot treatments lasting between 15 and 45 minutes, with a price range of €15-40. In our standalone stores we use POS that is directly evocative of the inspiration behind our product concepts. The magnolia trees in-store are a good example of how to bring our product inspiration to life.
Airside at London Stansted is among Rituals’ standalone airport store locations. “Expansion of our airport standalone portfolio is very much a priority for us,” comments Neil Ebbutt, Co-owner & Director Wholesale, Rituals.
